TulsaNorth/Turley Food Statistics: Why We Need The Miracle Among The Ruins Welcome Table GardenKitchenPark

Back to the basics of why we do what we do...According to a survey of our service area residents living in our zipcodes, which we partnered last summer to do with the OU Graduate Social Work Department, and are now publishing the results of....

...55 percent worry about the amount of food they have
...6 percent use spoiled food
...29 percent use a food pantry
...31 percent receive food from church
...35 percent borrow food from family
...25 percent borrow food from friends
...25 percent adults skip entire day from eating
...29 percent adults skip meals
...26 percent did not eat and are hungry at time of survey
...43 percent eat less than they should
...60 percent eat low cost foods
...52 percent cannot afford nutritious meals
...57 percent run out of food
...60 percent cannot afford healthy food

The Food Environment:
...29 percent have no affordable source of food in community
...63 percent know about a food pantry
,..56 percent rate the food quality in Turley area as fair or poor
...59 percent indicate food in Turley area expensive or very expensive relative to budget

Overall Health:
...56 percent not currently healthy
...41 percent health is fair or poor
...54 percent are overweight
...66 percent should weigh less
...47 percent smoke or use other tobacco

Nothing too surprising, of course, but sometimes the statistics are needed to make especially visible and in our face what we know from our anecdotal experience.

While it is true in our short life as a community within our community we have begun to provide a food pantry, offer meals, a one morning a week health clinic, a daily summer feeding program, beginning community gardens and orchard, classes and workshops on nutrition, providing community health and food resource information, and more, it is all a small drop in the bucket compared to what we can effect physicially, psychologically, spiritually, with the creation of the planned The Welcome Table Community Garden Kitchen Greenspace Park where we can raise from the ground up, from the grassroots, a major project to change our landscape, to bring people together to grow their own healthy food, saving money and saving lives, teaching how to grow and how to cook and how to eat healthy right here in our neighborhood in a fun park environment we will make in a place with a great view of Tulsa downtown and Tulsa county stretching out to Bird Creek bottomland in one direction and Turley Hill in the other. See the other posts here for all the vision and details and our Aug. 31 fundraising deadline. See the donate button above. Safe and easy and you don't have to have a paypal account to use the online giving form. Or send checks of support made out to A Third Place Community Foundation to us at 6514 N. Peoria Ave. Turley or Tulsa OK 74126.

We don't wait for a governmental agency to come in from the outside, with employees who don't live in our area providing services to us in our area, to do this; we don't wait for the perfect time and perfect economic climate to do this; at a time when everyone is cutting back, here where things have been cut back for years, we come together to start something new, something with a safe environment in the midst of an area others seek to make unsafe or to stigmatize and stereotype; here on the ground in solidarity with supporters in other places, we can dream big again, and make them real, one block at a time, modelling and inspiring others in their areas.

We have these past three years created an indoors A Third Place Center, from which we have created small projects elsewhere across our area; now we are moving toward creating the gardenkitchenpark as an outdoors A Third Place Center, where even bigger dreams will be dreamed and connections made to pull them off too.

We can over time, and by changing the culture from the grassroots, turn those statistics on food and health and justice around; they have not always been true of us living here; they don't have to be true for us and our children in the future. Perhaps there is no one miracle cure for these social and political and personal problems underlying the statistics, as I believe there is not, but I know the Miracle Among The Ruins transformation is one miracle that will make a difference.

Images At A Third Place

More on the way the rest of the week....

Coming "TNT" Events: Tulsa North/Turley. Don't Miss Them.

All are welcome. All are needed. Let us know of events to add. Let us know of events you would like to see. Come and help us plan how to make these events better and reach more people. Pass this on so others will have the same opportunity to be a part of community. More details coming, and reports afterwards, on these events.

OU Community Medicine Clinic Friday mornings. A Third Place. 619-4400 appts.

Area Leadership Council meeting, third Friday, Aug. 20, 2:30 pm, A Third Place.

Monthly McLain High School Initiative, third Fridays, 4 pm., Aug. 20, McLain.

Diversity Monthly Free Movie Night, Aug. 26, 6:30 pm, “Iron Jawed Angels” A Third Place. About the tremendous struggle for women's right to vote, on the day the nineteenth amendment was signed and Women's Rights Day was begun.

OU-“TNT” Tulsa North/Turley community service day, Sat. Aug. 28, 9am-3pm, A Third Place and out in community. Graduate Social Work Dept.

Garden Art and Community Gardening Day, Cherokee School, 6001 N. Peoria, Sat. Aug. 28, 8 am to Noon. Every School a Garden, Every Child a Gardener Program.

Turley Community Association, 7 pm, Tues Aug. 31, O’Brien Center, 6147 N. Lewis.
Community Coalitions Meeting with State Rep. Seneca Scott, Friday, Sept. 3, 5:30 pm TCC Northeast Campus, Apache and Harvard

Arts and Crafts Gathering, Tuesday Sept. 7, 6:30 pm, A Third Place. Free. Bring Projects or Interests.

OU-TNT Day, community projects, A Third Place, Sept. 11, 9 am to 3 pm.

Fundraising Lunch and Music for the Community Center at noon. Also OU-TNT projects Sept. 28 with Heritage Lunch at noon.

North Tulsa Coalitions meeting, Sept. 14 11 am Tulsa Job Corps on North Lewis.

Diversity Movie Month Free, Sept. 14, 6:30 pm A Third Place: Hispanic Community Focus

Weekly 12 Step Recovery Group, 7:30 pm Saturday, A Third Place

Weekly Thursday, 7 pm, Fire Department Meetings, Turley, 6404 N. Peoria

Last working day of month, 8:30 am Turley Water Board Public Meeting, 6108 N. Peoria

Sundays Weekly 10 am Church at A Third Place Worship, Rev. Ron Robinson

Much More To Come...

“Small Acts of Justice Done With Great Love Change The World”

Community Invite To Garden Party at Cherokee Saturdays Aug. 14 and 28, 8 to 10 am

Full details at the wonderful new blog you can follow at http://www.cherokeeschoolgardenjournal.blogspot.com/.

Come help us this Saturday Aug. 14 from 8 to 10 am as we build a Vegetable Garden Playhouse Hut at Cherokee School, 6001 N. Peoria Ave., using cattle panels. It will be located in the vegetable garden area in the back or east side of the building off Quincy Ave. If you can't make it this Saturday morning (great place to come after being an early bird at farmers market), pass on the invitation to others who might like to help this school get ready to greet the students on their return.

Then, on Saturday, Aug. 28, from 8 to 10 am the focus at the school garden will be Garden Art. Bring broken items from homes and they will be made into mosaics, sculptures, etc. for placement in the gardens around the school. Come see the transformation that began with the big garden day last September.

On this day Aug. 28 we will also be working in the community with a new crop of OU graduate social work students, giving them a tour of our service area in Tulsa North and Turley. If you'd would like to join in the tour and learn about our "Four Directions Initiative" and learn more about the history of the area, its changes, and plans for its future feel free; the general public will be invited.

What we did last year with the big Garden Transformation Event at Cherokee in September, we are hoping to do again this year at Horace Greeley Elementary School at North Cincinnati and 63rd St. Tentative date is Sat. Sept. 18; more information will be coming.

For more on Every School a Garden and Every Child a Gardener and the plans for these events go to www.cherokeeschoolgardenjournal.blogspot.com.

Thanks,hope to see you there

Miracle Among The Ruins Needs You: Link of Links

Pass this post on to others, church and youth and service groups; help us give the children here the Miracle Among the Ruins; we are $3,000 short of our goal and our deadline is Aug. 31. Donate safely and easily at the button above. See the links below for more.

See the plans and the links to all the links about the property and what it looks like now for kids at http://turleyok.blogspot.com/2010/06/channel-six-news-story-on-our-miracle.html.

The Channel Six news story is at http://www.newson6.com/Global/story.asp?S=12642450

For the OU social work students moving video about the place and the need for the project and for your donations, go to http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DhgFKD6_i_w .

For the OU Design Studio on what it will look like go to http://turleyok.blogspot.com/2010/05/miracle-among-ruins-welcome-table.html

For the background on why we are doing this community transformation project here go to http://turleyok.blogspot.com/2010/05/see-vision-miracle-among-ruins.html and to http://turleyok.blogspot.com/2010/04/consider-thischange-this.html


For the bigger connect the dots link on how we have plans for all of our Four Directions area of Tulsa North and Turley go to http://turleyok.blogspot.com/2010/05/four-directions-initiative-tnt-vision.html

And after you donate share it with someone who will donate. Don't wait. Every little bit goes a long way here. Surprise yourself and the world. Just as our Miracle Among the Ruin will surprise the children who will see it rise where ruins were before, all around them.

Just a Bit Of What Our Children Will See On Way To School on N. Peoria: See below for helping us change this.

Pass this post on to others. Children shouldn't be walking through these or past these, and these don't cover all the areas near us. Just a few of the photos of trash or abandoned houses with overgrown weeds creating risky unsafe environments. It is why we are doing the community gardening and beautification at the school itself, and why we are raising funds for the Miracle Among The Ruins project. Come to Cherokee 6001 N. Peoria on Saturdays Aug. 14 and 28 in the mornings to help beautify; pass on to others, church and youth and service groups; also help us give the children something different to walk past; help us give them the Miracle Among the Ruins; we are $3,000 short of our goal and our deadline is Aug. 31. Donate safely and easily at the button above.

See the plans and the links to all the links about the property and what it looks like now for kids at http://turleyok.blogspot.com/2010/06/channel-six-news-story-on-our-miracle.html.

The Channel Six news story is at http://www.newson6.com/Global/story.asp?S=12642450

For the OU social work students moving video about the place and the need for the project and for your donations, go to http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DhgFKD6_i_w .

For the OU Design Studio on what it will look like go to http://turleyok.blogspot.com/2010/05/miracle-among-ruins-welcome-table.html

For the background on why we are doing this community transformation project here go to http://turleyok.blogspot.com/2010/05/see-vision-miracle-among-ruins.html and to http://turleyok.blogspot.com/2010/04/consider-thischange-this.html

For the bigger connect the dots link on how we have plans for all of our Four Directions area of Tulsa North and Turley go to http://turleyok.blogspot.com/2010/05/four-directions-initiative-tnt-vision.html

And after you donate share it with someone who will donate. Don't wait. Every little bit goes a long way here. Surprise yourself and the world. Just as our Miracle Among the Ruin will surprise the children who will see it rise where ruins were before, all around them.

Party Among The Ruins Wednesday July 28 7 pm at Community Garden Site 6025 N. Johnstown

Your Invitation, and Please Invite Others

What: "Party Among The Ruins"
Make real the Miracle Among the Ruins project to turn a block of abandoned properties here in TulsaNorth/Turley into The Welcome Table Community Kitchen Garden Park. Come tour the proposed site and area and discuss the plans; even consider ways you might replicate such a project in your own part of town if you live elsewhere. See the video produced by the OU Graduate Design Studio of what it can look like and be even as we are partying amid what it is now. Beverages and ice cream social and watermelon and refreshments provided for freewill donations. Beat the heat with a water balloon fight. Listen to music. Meet others committed to community renewal, health, food justice, one block at a time.

When: Wednesday, July 28, 7 to 9 pm. We have a July 30 deadline to finish raising the funds to buy the property. Come celebrate and let us say thanks for all your donations. Bring friends who haven't donated yet, or take this opportunity to have fun and bring your own donation, or in the spirit of generosity and abundance give again if you have donated already. Surprise yourself as we surprise our community, so often seen as powerless and struggling and stereotyped, with this venture so needed here, and now.

Where: 6025 N. Johnstown Ave., between Peoria and Cincinnati, due west up the hill from Cherokee School. Enter the property off Johnstown. Park along the street or in the parking lot across the street at the nearby Methodist Church. This hilltop neighborhood has outstanding views of downtown Tulsa and out east toward the horizon of the Bird Creek bottomland; to the north rises Turley Hill. The party will take place in the center of the property on abandoned foundations between run down buildings. You will also get a chance to see the infamous resident-made walking trail people use going to school and stores on foot, some of the area we have raised a few experimental gardens already, and walk the paths in a native grass and plant area. Also tour our A Third Place Community Center at 6514 N. Peoria Ave. while you are in the area.

How: Just come, or if you can help by donating beverages or refreshments such as ice cream for an ice cream social part of the event; or come help fill up water balloons for those who want to "stay cool",. We are a grassroots group and we like our events to grow from the grassroots as well.

RSVP and also pass this invitation on by email, in announcements at church, synagogue, mosque, temple, or your civic group this weekend, pass it through social networking sites, to family, friends, colleagues and coworkers.

In case of rain, say a prayer of thanks and a halleluia and come drive by the area and stop for the Party at A Third Place Center, 6514 N. Peoria where we will move the event. If you haven't seen our unique approach to community renewal, this is a great time to visit, and to bring others who might not have been here yet. In fact, this past few weeks talking with medical students, we found out again that many of them have grown up in Tulsa but never been to the northside or been this far into the northside. If you know of anyone like that, use this opportunity to expand their horizons.

And be one of the folks who push us over our fundraising goal to purchase this property. We can't do it with just you alone (unless of course you can donate or arrange for a donation of $7,000), but we also can't do it without you. And we mean that. True, we have a ways to go still and a short amount of time to do it in, but we wouldn't call it a "miracle among the ruins" if it had been easy to do. We do have a commitment from Tulsa County to remove and clear the property for us once we purchase it, and we have volunteers ready to transform it; all we need is to own the land. Find out all the wonderful plans and donate now at http://turleyok.blogspot.com/2010/06/channel-six-news-story-on-our-miracle.html or send checks made out to A Third Place Community Foundation at 6514 N. Peoria Ave, Turley, OK 74126.

At the website for A Third Place Community you will also see the multitude of other ways we are giving back to our neighborhoods in our area between 46th St. N. and 86th St. N. and Highway 75 and Osage County Line. All of these need support. The Miracle Among The Ruins project is a vital one for us here in the zipcode of Tulsa with the lowest life expectancy and a fourteen year gap between us and mid town just a few miles away, but the kitchengarden project is part of a bigger picture connecting the dots in what we call "The Four Directions Initiative" for TulsaNorth/Turley; a true "TNT" vision explosion for renewal.

Thanks and blessings and see you for a "party among the ruins." Don't forget to share this with all others.

Ron Robinson
430-1150 home; 6913223 cell, 7944637 office
A Third Place Community, a 501c3 grassroots, 100 percent into mission, neighborhood movement
"Small acts of justice done with great love change the world."

Tulsa World Article On Our Partnership with OU

http://www.tulsaworld.com/news/article.aspx?subjectid=11&articleid=20100620_11_A18_TheRev414018&archive=yes

Read the article linked above in the Tulsa World about A Third Place Center and our growing partnership with the University of Oklahoma, the community health, the social work, and the design studio. We hope to increase and spread our partnership with OU into other departments, and also to partner with other universities in the Tulsa area especially.

Thanks to Dr. Lisa Byers of our A Third Place Community who helped bring others at OU into partnership with us back in 2007 when we had just opened our doors. From the first days with the mobile health van to our health clinic indoors here now, from the first community forums with OU social work students to our recently completed first Community Academy, to the work by the Design Studio on our radical transforming Miracle Among The Ruins project to create The Welcome Table Kitchen Garden Park where a city block of abandoned houses and weeds now reigns at one of the most beautiful spots in our area overlooking both downtown and much of the Bird Creek bottomland area, the campus and community working together are, in small ways, changing the world here.

Come be a part of it. Spread the news.

Our Summer Lunch For All Those 18 and Under Continues

We sponsor and pay staff for the summer lunch feeding program for anyone 18 years or under, from any place, no ID required, at Cherokee Elementary School, from 11:30 am to 12:30 pm Monday through Friday, at 6001 N. Peoria. We have been up to some 80 children lately. Part of that is that we are continuing the program all summer long and some of the schools in our area, who have to rely on school staff, must close their program when their summer classes are done. Since we are community based we are paying for it all summer long and we are getting children from many areas, including day cares and church groups, who are bringing their children to us.

This is a great community service. If you can help donate for it, or for any of our programs and services you read about here on this site, please do so easily and safely through the Donate button at the top of the webpage.

Heat Alert in our Area Continues: We are a Cooling Station

All this past week we have been open with water and a cool place to relax for those especially journeying by foot, bus, or bicycle. We will continue it as this next week looks like the heat alert will continue. We have also gone out to deliver cold bottles of water to those waiting at bus stops, on foot, or on bicycles in our area. If you know someone who has no electric power especially to run air conditioners or fans, tell them to come by. And we encourage you, if you are able to, to also take water around with you to distribute to those who find themselves outside and in need of it. We have supplies for you at the Center.

Take Your Community Life Survey at the Center

As part of one of the partnerships between A Third Place Community and the Graduate Social Work School at OU, we are taking surveys of how people feel about their neighborhoods and their community health. These surveys are available at the Center and take some 20 minutes on average to fill out. They are done anonymously. The data will help us shape future grant requests and programs to help meet the real needs of our residents. An OU student or Community Center volunteer will help you with any questions about the survey. Come add your voice to those of your neighbors.

This is the latest of the surveys and community forums we have partnered with OU to do over the past two years. The results have been real. We have community gardens, and we have abandoned properties scheduled to be removed, and we have a new and expanded Food Pantry, and projects underway as a result of the Springtime Community Academy program.

So your voice is being heard and is being turned into better life in the neighborhoods. There is still so much to do, so every bit helps. Thanks.

OU and A Third Place Tulsa North/Turley Poverty Education Workshop Friday July 23 Helpers Needed

We still need a few more folks to sign up to help us in the poverty education workshop Friday July 23 at O'Brien Park, 6147 N. Lewis, with OU Graduate Social Work students. Helpers will get free lunch at noon during an hour of easy training for the workshop which then take place from 1 to 4 pm in the gym. Pass it on to those you know who might be interested in the program. RSVP to Ron Robinson 691-3223 or 430-1150.

Helpers, community residents and activists, will take on roles of staff from health clinic, law, social services, school, bank, etc. as the incoming graduate students take on different roles of residents and try to access necessities. Play money is used but it is not a game; it is a way to begin raising understanding.

Come be a community educator.

Community Health Discussion for TulsaNorthTurley on Friday July 16 1 pm at A Third Place Center

Hi come listen to a great discussion of community health issues and needs and community life stories for our area this Friday, July 16 at 1 pm at A Third Place Center as we complete our conversations with Univ. of Okla. premed and medical students as they seek to learn about various communities and their health needs. The joys and struggles of living here and living here and growing healthy families, the changes in medical care, and more. Rev. Ron Robinson and Dr. Bonnie J. Ashing, M.D., will lead the conversation.

Free Movie and Meal and Discussion Tuesday July 13 6:30 pm

Come hear about the community garden plans and activities and ways you can help; and everyone can help...come have a free meal on us...come watch the acclaimed movie directed by Robert Redford, "The Milagro Beanfield War" about community, justice, land, water, farming, and risk. Tuesday, July 13, 6:30 pm at A Third Place Center.